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Freshwater & Marine Life

With so many rivers, streams, and lakes, as well as the great oceans, there is also a plethora of fish, shellfish, and some aquatic mammals as well as aquatic bird species.

The two most common freshwater aquatic mammals are a very large beaver and giant otter. Neither are a danger to humans.

The oceans also support a tremendous variety of life, from corals to great whales.

Aquatic Predators

There are water-dwelling predators and other dangerous animals such as sea snakes. They range from sharks (mostly marine, but there are one or two freshwater species and one that can go from saltwater to freshwater, the bull shark) to toothed marine mammals and massive marine reptiles. The majority of the marine mammals are not dangerous to humans except in rare instances, usually accidents caused by humans. There are, however, sea monsters’, massive marine reptiles, squid, and octopus. These animals are far less discriminating in their diets.

Bichir

Bichir

The Bichir is a freshwater fish that closely resembles a cross between a giant catfish and a giant eel or snake. In color, they range from white to blue-gray and tend to be able to blend into the sand on the bottoms of rivers and amongst the rocks at the edge of rivers and deeper creeks.

Bichir hunt in the rivers, but return to the deep lakes to mate and spawn.

The average length of an adult Bichir is 12 – 13 feet. Males have been recorded up to 16 feet in length. Both males and females are highly aggressive. Their usual mode of attack is to bite and then, like a constrictor, wrap the victim in coils and pull them under the surface where the hapless victim is drowned and then dragged to the Bichir’s lair where it consumes its meal at its leisure.

The Bichir is not a super predator. What it has on its side is its size, speed, and aggression. Its scales are not abnormally tough, and it is not abnormally hard to kill.

Kraken

Krakens are an enormous species of octopus (cephalopods). The upper limit on their size is unknown, but it is believed the truly monstrous sized ship-killers are very rare. Sailors report sightings of animals with tentacles measuring up to 120 feet in length. However, most of these reports are unconfirmed. The average size tends to be approximately 60 feet from the head to the tips of the longest tentacles.

Krakens live in the deep trenches of Gaia’s oceans and normally feed on whales, morgwn (megalodon sharks), giant squid, and the more massive morgwn. In turn, they are preyed upon by the same creatures. A female can spawn thousands of offspring, but few survive to grow into the immense creatures that are capable of destroying a large ship.

Physically, a Kraken resembles an octopus, where the eyes are set and in their immense and powerful beak. Kraken can change their body texture to camouflage themselves quite effectively despite their size. They also share the same level of intelligence demonstrated by various species of octopus. Internally, they are more akin to squid and share the squid’s ability to flash in different colors. Krakens have the eight arms of an octopus but also have the two whip-like tentacles of their squid cousins. The suckers on the arms are lined with jagged chitinous teeth and in the center is a large, extremely sharp rotating hook made of the same material as the creature’s beak.

Morgwn

Morgwn

The Morgwn are massive sharks that can reach up to seventy feet in length. Like the Kraken, the extremely massive members of this species are very rare. The average morgwn measures forty to fifty feet in length.

Despite their size, morgwn are rarely dangerous to man. Attacks are rare and when they occur are usually a case of the shark mistaking a vessel or a human as prey. Unfortunately, considering the morgwn’s size, the encounters are usually fatal. Morgwns generally prey upon the larger species of seals, whales, giant squid, Kraken, etc.